Incest, White Lotus and ...Judith Butler.
The creator of White Lotus wrote his thesis on Judith Butler. Is the show's incest story influenced by the incest-obsessed Queen of Queer Theory?
“I do think that there are probably forms of incest that are not necessarily traumatic or which gain their traumatic character by virtue of the consciousness of social shame that they produce.”
Judith Butler, ‘Undoing Gender’.
After my last post about White Lotus a friend sent me a text asking if I knew that Mike White, the show’s writer and creator, wrote his thesis on…Judith Butler. I was tempted to reply, “Of course I did”. Instead I admitted I didn’t and thanked Lisa like the honest boy I am.
So my excuse for a second White Lotus post in as many weeks is that am making up for missing this intriguing link the last time. The revelation appeared in a fascinating New Yorker interview with White last month.
In my defence even before Lisa pointed out the connection I had already pondered whether there might not be some Queer Theory influence on White Lotus. My curiosity was sparked when publicity ahead of Season 3 hinted heavily about a possible incest theme between the Ratliff brothers; Saxon (Patrick Schwarznegger) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola).
This would not be the first time the show had dealt with incest. In the second season “evil gay” Quentin (Tom Hollander) was unceremoniously banged by his cheeky nephew Jack (Leo Waddell). Or at least we thought he had been.
A week later we learned Jack was really just a run of the mill, live-in hustler and the nephew stuff had all been a cover story. We could all breathe a sigh of relief.
The fact that incest -and REAL incest this time- was slated for Season 3 obviously didn’t prove in and of itself Queer Theory was an influence on the show. On the other hand White had left a clue he was aware of its high priestess…. Judith Butler.
In Season 1, Paula packs into her bag Butler’s book ‘Gender Trouble’.
She then loses the bag and it’s handed into hotel manager Armond. He discovers it is full of drugs and after he takes them he famously unravels. A bit like my brain did when I read Gender Trouble.
Thanks to the New Yorker we now discover Mike White wasn’t just loosely acquainted with Butler. He studied her work; finishing his thesis at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1992. By then Butler had published only one notable work: Gender Trouble (1990). Apart that is from her tome, ‘Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France’ which is a real page-turner let me assure you. I might even quote from it later if you’re not careful.
As for ‘Gender Trouble’, it leans into incest with all the gusto Jack leaned into his uncle…who wasn’t his uncle.
What might explain Butler’s amoral outlook on one of the most enduring of ethical prohibitions? To answer that question I’m going to trace the influence on her work of her mentor Gayle Rubin; a sadomasochist lesbian, porn aficionado, populariser of Foucault and defender of “boy-love”. Everyone’s idea of the perfect mentor then.
I’ll also reveal the key to understanding Rubin and Butler’s outlook on incest is a long-forgotten book by Marshall Sahlins, Rubin’s tutor….and mentor.
The title of his book is as relevant now as it was then.
In ‘The Use and Abuse of Biology’ Sahlins argued the importance of biology in human affairs had been wildly exaggerrated. Sound familiar? His proof biology’s status had to be overthrown was …the incest taboo.
Rubin and Butler would take Sahlins’ contempt for biology to new depths, making it the touchstone of their vision of humanity. In their dark, utopian ‘queer’ fantasy …the incest taboo would be reborn. As the source of all our social ills. The incest taboo was now portrayed as an Original Sin. As for incest itself …it was no sort of sin at all.
If you want to appreciate just how destructive, and frankly….perverse….are both Butler and the Queer Theory she helped create there is no better example than the story of their mutual embrace of incest as a route to human liberation.